Trump rejected Iran’s ceasefire proposal and its offer of a temporary reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. That sent Brent back above $100 this morning.

I think the administration is doing the right thing. Money is the only language everyone in this conflict actually speaks, and Trump looks willing to see it through.

The aviation half of America’s so-called Economic D-Day — Operation Economic Outcast, aimed at the global aviation chain and launched on 23 September 2026 — is starting to show. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been blunt: any foreign airport, fuel supplier, ground handler or ticket agent that keeps servicing Iranian airlines will be cut off from the dollar system. Twenty-seven active Iranian airlines sit under that blockade. Bessent has said roughly 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s international air traffic is already gone. Civil society feels it first. Medical cargo does not get a waiver.

China is the only large player that has openly tested the threat. A Mahan Air flight landed in Guangzhou on 23 September, after the deadline, the same day Xi Jinping arrived in Washington. If it stays one aircraft, Washington will probably swallow it. Both sides get to pretend they did not blink.

The oil market is less polite. No deal, no open strait on Iran’s terms, Brent over a hundred again. That is the point.

If you actually have to own this mess from a Swedish account, the dollar plumbing matters more than the speeches. I wrote that down here: How a Swede buys the US market.